pandybat

Meaning

Noun

• A stout leather strap reinforced internally with whalebone or even lead and used to inflict punishment, especially by striking the palms of schoolboys.

Origin

• Seems to have been used in Ireland for much of the 20th century. Since James Joyce cites it in the context of a Catholic school in his novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, it may have been a pun on the Latin word pendebat, but was more probably derived from the Latin words pande manum, meaning "hold out your hand".